Be Part of Something Unique!
The Digital Tech Academy is FAU’s Elite Entrepreneurship program open to outstanding innovative talents from all FAU degree programs and faculties! We impart all you need to follow your heart and passion for digitization, entrepreneurship and innovation.
The benefits of the DTA 12-week program
Collaborate with top FAU talents and expert mentors.
Widen your professional & personal network.
Receive an official FAU certificate.
Learn the latest state-of-the-art innovation methods.
Work in interdisciplinary teams.
Choose your own idea or join an exciting project.
DTA Program Objectives
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YOUR BUSINESS MODEL VALIDATED
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MARKET POTENTIAL VALIDATED
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FINANCIAL PLAN IN PROGRESS
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PROTOTYPE WORK IN PROGRESS
DTA Program Overview
We will guide you through the end-to-end design process and help you unlock the entrepreneur in YOU!
Get to know your Digital Tech Fellows, choose your start-up idea and assemble your interdisciplinary team. After the Kick-off weekend you will be fully set-up to start your entrepreneurial journey with the DTA.
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In order to understand the holistic impact of your choosen start-up idea, eight discovery areas are being researched, e.g. to understand the world of a potential client, research the competition, etc.
In this workshop we dive deep into market and competitor analysis to create a great foundation for our future business model. On top of that we go through the best techniques and ways how to interview potential customers & users.
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Using the discovered insights, several new business ideas are developed, prioritized and first drafted into a value proposition followed by a complete business model. Then Hypothese & Experiments are defined to validate the choosen business model. For validation different prototypes such as landing pages, videos, and mock-ups are created. Besides that we will spend a whole weekend in a nice location together and have lot’s of FUN 🙂
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Throughout the validation phase, which serves to verify our business model with the help of different experiments and prototypes, we check in with each other and use the first generated insights to define a lean version of our future offering.
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During the Pitching workshop we will cover the different types of pitches and learn how to best present our start-up idea.
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In the review workshop we take a trip down memory lane and review the whole process and our developments together. We discuss which next steps we will take to further validate our Business model.
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The financial modeling workshop will teach you everything you need to know about investment planning, cost planning & price calculation. At the end you will have a clear picture what your product or service is worth and how to calculate the numbers.
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The final Demo Day marks the official end of the program, where all team pitch their start-up ideas to a large audience and share their next steps and plans for the future with us. Afterwards it’s time for our award ceremony and most importantly time to celebrate our Digital Tech Fellows with the rest of our DTA Community.
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DTA Schedule – Batch #12
| Name of the Event | Date | Venue | Time |
| Kick-off Weekend | 17.04.2026 – 19.04.2026 | BlueBox, Freyeslebensstr.1 | 9 am to 5 pm |
| DTA Community Event | 18.04.2026 | BlueBox, Freyeslebensstr.1 | 5-9pm (optional) |
| Discover Deep Dive | 30.04.2026 | BlueBox, Freyeslebensstr.1 | 9 am to 5pm |
| Design Workshop | 14.05.2026 – 16.05.2026 | ForschungscampusWaischenfeld (Transportation & Accomodation included) | 9 am to 5 pm |
| Validate & Financial Modelling Workshop | 29.05.2026 | D.hip | 9 am to 5pm |
| DTA Community goes BERG | 29.05.2026 | Bergkirchweih Erlangen | 5-9pm (optional) |
| Pitching Workshop | 12.06.2026 | BlueBox, Freyeslebensstr.1 | 9 am to 5pm |
| Pitch Test I | 17.06.2026 | Online | Individual appointments 9am – 2pm |
| Review Workshop | 03.07.2026 | Conference room 01.3513 Freyeslebensstr.1 | 9 am to 5 pm |
| Pitch Test II | 07.07.2026 | Conference room 01.3268 Freyeslebensstr.1 | Individual |
| Final Demo Day | 10.07.2026 | D.hip | 9 am to 5 pm |
| DTA Community Celebration | 10.07.2026 | D.hip | 5-10pm |
DTA Application
Application for Batch #12 of the DTA Program is closed. Application for Batch #13 will start in October 2026.
DTA Alumni Coming Back
Our DTA Start-ups from the previous batches always come back and share their journey & advice with the upcoming entrepreneurs:
DTA Alumni Coming Back
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Oculai
Constantin & Tim from our Batch#6 Start-up Oculai joined us as mentors for Batch#8 during the Design Weekend and shared great insights on how to grow fast and what not to underestimate when going all in with your start-up. Oculai offers a solution for camera-based data collection on construction sites. Intelligent computer vision algorithms extract data on resource utilization, construction performance and construction progress from image material. This automates time-consuming documentation and reveals productivity deficits in individual processes at an early stage. -
arfinity
Lucia Grom-Baumgarten from our DTA B#3 Start-up arfinity sharing their journey since participating in the Digital Tech Academy Program back in 2018. Arfinity brings Augmented Reality to the world of trade fairs by enabling completely new ways of product presentation and interaction, which eventually offer significant value for all stakeholders at trade fairs. In an easy and cost-efficient configuration tool, exhibitors can create their own AR content and showcase a bigger portfolio in the form of true-to-original 3D-models during events. -
Libati
Katrin & Doro from our Batch#4 Start-up Libati shared helpful validation advice with our Digital Tech Fellows. They show the different mock-ups and prototypes they started out with and how long it took to have their final app (which is of course always work-in-progress) today.Libati offers an App for the chronically ill people to discover new places more freely and independently. The user simply creates his personal trigger factors and preferences like stairs, pet hair etc. at the beginning and sees at a glance which locations around him/her are suitable and which are not. The input is based on the ratings of other users. -
INVRTUAL
Markus, Spyros and Michi from our DTA B#4 Start-up INVRTUAL shared their journey of starting a start-up next to studying with our fellows. Their Do’s & Don’ts when starting a business were really helpful for our Digital Tech Fellows.INVRTUAL’s mission is to redefine the way people collaborate in the virtual space. With our XR communication platform, we enable a variety of customer-centric applications ranging from virtual training to product presentation.
